if the Conference falls apart and they don't have to pay them. So let's say that is 6 schools say we are not playing the NIL game and decide not to be tier 1, and lets say ESPN is paying them 35 million. That saves them over 200 million dollars a year, over 5 years that 1 billion dollars. You could argue it won't be that much or you could argue it will be more, but either way, it is a ton of money.

Cutting expenses is usually the fastest way to make more profit, but in the long run you need to make more revenue. Let's just take the SEC and they want football passionate schools so they can create incredible matchups. That's their model, don't worry about population, but do worry about PASSION. So they pluck the most passionate football schools in the ACC. Florida State, Clemson, Virginia Tech and maybe NC State. The matchups will be great and subscribers will go up, commercail money will go up and viewers will go up.

Those two ways are how ESPN/SEC make more money without having to pay all the ACC schools and getting even greater matchups.

[Post edited by Stech at 04/25/2022 4:42PM]